Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete eBook

of unusual dimensions, it was as if the reply had been
put in capitals, but all in vain, the worthy burgomasters
were equally perplexed with the governor. Each
one put his thumb to the end of his nose, spread his
fingers like a fan, imitated the motion of Anthony
Van Corlear, then smoked on in dubious silence.
Several times was Anthony obliged to stand forth like
a fugleman and repeat the sign, and each time a circle
of nasal weathercocks might be seen in the council
chamber.

Perplexed in the extreme, William the Testy sent for
all the soothsayers and fortune tellers and wise men
of the Manhattoes, but none could interpret the mysterious
reply of Nicholas Koorn. The council broke up
in sore perplexity. The matter got abroad; Anthony
Van Corlear was stopped at every corner to repeat
the signal to a knot of anxious newsmongers, each
of whom departed with his thumb to his nose and his
fingers in the air, to carry the story home of his
family. For several days all business was neglected
in New Amsterdam; nothing was talked of but the diplomatic
mission of Anthony the Trumpeter, nothing was to be
seen but knots of politicians with their thumbs to
their noses. In the meantime the fierce feud
between William the Testy and Killian Van Rensellaer,
which at first had menaced deadly warfare, gradually
cooled off, like many other war questions, in the
prolonged delays of diplomacy.

Still, to this early affair of Rensellaersteen may
be traced the remote origin of those windy wars in
modern days which rage in the bowels of the Helderberg,
and have well nigh shaken the great patroonship of
the Van Rensellaers to its foundation: for we
are told that the bully boys of the Helderberg, who
served under Nicholas Koorn, the wacht-meester, carried
back to their mountains the hieroglyphic sign which
had so sorely puzzled Anthony Van Corlear and the
sages of the Manhattoes; so that to the present day,
the thumb to the nose and the fingers in the air is
apt to be the reply of the Helderbergers whenever
called upon for any long arrears of rent.

CHAPTER XII.

It was asserted by the wise men of ancient times who
had a nearer opportunity of ascertaining the fact,
that at the gate of Jupiter’s palace lay two
huge tuns, one filled with blessings, the other with
misfortunes; and it would verily seem as if the latter
had been completely overturned, and left to deluge
the unlucky province of Nieuw Nederlandts; for about
this time, while harassed and annoyed from the south
and the north, incessant forays were made by the border
chivalry of Connecticut upon the pig-sties and hen-roosts
of the Nederlanders. Every day or two some broad-bottomed
express rider, covered with mud and mire, would come
floundering into the gate of New Amsterdam, freighted
with some new tale of aggression from the frontier;
whereupon Anthony Van Corlear, seizing his trumpet,
the only substitute for a newspaper in those primitive
days, would sound the tidings from the ramparts with
such doleful notes and disastrous cadence, as to throw
half the old women in the city into hysterics; all
which tended greatly to increase his popularity, there
being nothing for which the public are more grateful
than being frequently treated to a panic—­a
secret well known to modern editors.